Specimens of English dramatic poets. New ed. (2 pt. in 1 v.)

I have scarce breath to number twenty minutes;
I'd not spend that in cursing. Fare thee well:
Half of thyself lies there and may'st thou live
To fill an hour-glass with his moulder'd ashes,
To tell how thou should'st spend the time to come
In blest repentance.

Bra. Mother, pray tell me

How came he by his death? what was the quarrel ?
Cor. Indeed, my younger boy presum❜d too much
Upon his manhood, gave him bitter words,

Drew his sword first; and so, I know not how,
For I was out of my wits, he fell with 's head
Just in my bosom.

Page. This is not true, Madam.

Cor. I pr'ythee peace.

One arrow's graz'd already: it were vain

To lose this, for that will ne'er be found again.

FRANCISCO describes to FLAMINEO the grief of CORNELIA at the

funeral of MARCELLO.

Your reverend Mother

Is grown a very old woman in two hours.

I found them winding of Marcello's corse;
And there is such a solemn melody,

'Tween doleful songs, tears, and sad elegies:

Such as old grandames, watching by the dead,

Were wont to outwear the nights with; that, believe me,

I had no eyes to guide me forth the room,

They were so o'ercharg'd with water.

Funeral Dirge for Marcello.

[His mother sings it.

Call for the Robin-red-breast and the Wren,

Since o'er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.

Call unto his funeral dole

The Ant, the Field-mouse, and the Mole,

To raise him hillocks that shall keep him warm,
And (when gay tombs are robb'd) sustain no harm ;
But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men,
For with his nails he'll dig them up again.*

Folded Thoughts.

Come, come, my Lord, unite your folded thoughts, And let them dangle loose as a bride's hair.

Your sister's poison'd.

Dying Princes.

To see what solitariness is about dying Princes! As heretofore they have unpeopled towns, divorced friends, and made great houses unhospitable! so now, O justice! where are their flatterers now ? flatterers are but the shadows of princes' bodies, the least thick cloud makes them invisible.

Natural Death.

O thou soft natural death! that art joint twin
To sweetest slumber !—no rough-bearded Comet
Stares on thy mild departure; the duli Owl
Beats not against thy casement; the hoarse Wolf
Scents not thy carrion. Pity winds thy corse,
Whilst horror waits on princes'

Vow of Murder rebuked.

Miserable creature,

If thou persist in this 'tis damnable.

Dost thou imagine thou canst slide on blood,

And not be tainted with a shameful fall?

Or like the black and melancholic yew-tree,
Dost think to root thyself in dead men's graves
And yet to prosper!

* I never saw anything like this Dirge, except the Ditty which reminds Ferdinand of his drowned father in the Tempest. As that is of the water, watery; so this is of the earth, earthy. Both have that intenseness of fee1.. ing, which seems to resolve itself into the elements which it contemplate

Dying Man.

See see how firmly he doth fix his eyes

Upon the crucifix.

Oh hold it constant.

It settles his wild spirits: and so his eyes

Melt into tears.

Despair.

O the cursed Devil,

Which doth present us with all other sins

Thrice candied o'er; despair, with gall and stibium, Yet we carouse it off.

END OF PART I